Car bomb kills senior Hamas official

Posted: Monday, September 27, 2004

DAMASCUS, Syria - In a hit claimed by Israeli security officials, a senior Hamas operative was killed in a car bombing Sunday outside his house in Damascus, the first such killing of a leader of the Islamic militant group in Syria.

Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil, 42, died instantly in the explosion, which wounded three bystanders. Witnesses said he was speaking on his mobile phone as he put his white Mitsubishi SUV in reverse before it exploded about 10 yards from his home.

Analysts said the killing appeared designed as much to warn the Syrians as to keep Hamas off balance.

Syria called the killing "cowardly" and top Hamas leaders, already taking extraordinary security precautions, went deeper underground. The killing threatened to take the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to new levels, with conflicting remarks from Hamas on whether it too would begin targeting Israeli interests abroad.

Security officials in Jerusalem, speaking anonymously, acknowledged involvement, though the Israeli government issued no statement. It had been warning for weeks that members of the group would not be safe in Syria.

Israel's ability to infiltrate the Hamas leadership in Damascus will likely further rattle the group after Israel killed Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and his successor as Gaza leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in missile strikes this year.

The Syrian Interior Ministry said in a terse statement carried by the official news agency, SANA, that Khalil had not engaged in any militant activity inside Syrian territory, and that authorities were investigating the explosion.

SANA later quoted an unidentified government official as saying that "this terrorist operation constitutes a dangerous development for which Israel bears responsibility."

Ahmad Haj Ali, an adviser to the Syrian information minister, described the assassination as a "terrorist and cowardly action."

"This is not the first warning" Israel has tried to convey to Syria, Haj Ali said. "What happened indicates that Israel's aggression has no limits."

The killing, he said, "was meant to deliver a message to the entire world that says: 'We (Israelis) are capable of striking anywhere in accordance with the Israeli agenda."'

Haitham Kilani, a Syrian political analyst, said the assassination was an "Israeli-American message" that Syria should take seriously. He predicted more assassinations if Syria "shelters and protects the Palestinian movements struggling against Israel."